It was getting weirder and weirder. Mike was insane, but he was covering it well. There were no outbursts, no changing of outfits, no out damned spot attitudes toward his dog, he was doing fine ... until he began thinking whimsically, nostalgically, musically, unrealistically and apocalyptically. And morbidly. He wanted to stage Woodstock in the Woods. The last gasp of the hippie generation, flower power, the Sixties, and, seventies, rainbows, granny glasses, beads, hip huggers, mari-fucking-juana. He lived in Tennessee, which explained a lot. The portion of Tennessee where Mike lived, Mike being his nickname, his real name being Michaelanjellico, had a lot to do with that. It was either the emissions from the Du Pont plant, emissions from the non-descript plant with the tall fences strung with barbed wire, paint chips, the sludge in the creek ... or a complete breakdown of the educational system. And so to right that, and, in part, to celebrate the death of Richard Nixon, he decided that he would pull out the stops.
As much as admirers of Houdini were convinced he could dematerialize. Trick gear shows otherwise
HARRY HOUDINI, whose real name was Eric Weiss, was the son of a rabbi, and arguably a messiah-like 'superman' who inspired immigrants yearning for freedom and success. Houdini was beloved by all who knew him. Toward the end of his career, with his hair beginning to show touches of gray, he devoted his time to entertaining sick children in hospital. He may have been murdered by friend turned foe Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame. Sir Arthur was a spiritualist, close friends with several mediums, and convinced that Houdini could dematerialize. And Houdini thought Sir Arthur was a nut and said so -- which is a credit to Houdini's craft, in the sense that it is, after all, just illusion. The author of the enormously popular Sherlock Holmes stories was a practitioner of the occult, and who knows, he may very well have seen ghosts in the presence of these mediums, hence his strong reaction to Houdini's debunking efforts. Doubtful, however, that any "Watchers" (in Purgatory?) could be produced at will, or that they could ring a bell or do other spectacular tricks. Sir Arthur was too smart a man to fall for spiritualism unless his occultic experiences produced tangible results; and they very likely did. Houdini's medical records from a Detroit hospital where he was treated after allegedly being punched in the stomach, rupturing his appendix, are highly suspect in light of the marked indication for the appendix on the medical chart on the "left" side. Any legitimate health care professional would have readily known the appendix is found only on the right side. No autoposy was ever performed, and, Houdini's body was placed in one of his trick caskets made of bronze, placed on a train and whisked to New York before the family knew what had happened to the famed magician's body. Houdini may have been poisoned. Was Houdini a forerunner of anything or anyone? Arguably, histoty often appears to be constructed as art.
TANATA: Things (often) Are Not As They Appear
- Randall Carter Gray
- Signal Mountain, Tennessee, United States
- student of Coptic and Judaic studies, gentleman (amateur) scholar